Posts by ptmmac

I would actually be really surprised if Apple was stupid enough to do this on purpose unless it is due to an unavoidable new feature. Given the Dilbert rule, there is a pretty high chance of that happening.

I think Apple would do much better from this if they were to just go ahead and make the ongoing charges much more reasonable. 15% seems more than fair and it would encourage more software to make their subscription fees available in the App Store. The best of all would be to keep the 30% charge on all the purchases of "virtual goods" which have infected gaming culture. Taxing this heavily would discourage developers from building this kind of garbage into everything they make.

Re: Damn it

Well they did just explicitly say that they don't want your data... Not sure how much more direct they can be. They also have refused to keep open doors on your security for the government to use.

I have always preferred Apple, but there have been some real questions lately. It is not all roses. The clarity of purpose, and design has dropped off significantly. Apple software was much more stable and secure before the most recent 2 or 3 iterations. There have been signs that they are simply slower to respond now that they have gotten bigger. The most recent OS updates have been focused on restoring much of that. If they can do the same on the hardware side, with Jony Ive working on computers again instead of the Apple campus, then they are going to be pretty hard to displace.

Re: Who still uses farenheight for things like this ?

Good old fashioned arrogance is the primary reason.

Re: Coincidence or something serously wrong here...

Booz Allen is probably one of the largest beneficiaries of government for sale in America. The chances of them losing federal contractor status is nil.

Cost is dropping as automation kicks in

Apple has every incentive to improve costs on this type of recycling. If they can recycle their product better than anyone else because they have invested the time, money and effort into doing this, then everyone saves. So often in tech people only look at ego boosting improvements, when it is the incremental improvements that really make a difference in the long run. Building a junk yard that breaks down products that you are already getting back through good warranty practices gives companies a chance to build up a new cash flow chain. Many junk yards have piles of metal that it was not economical for them to sort, but which are now mined for materials when prices get higher on the spot market. Modern Junkyards have a huge conveyor belt systems which uses lasers to find a particular metal and blasts of air to push off the scrap that has been identified into the proper bin. The only manual labor is the effort to shovel or scoop the piles of old mixed metals into the system and to watch for jams or other problems with the system.

The article above describes a robot that is going to improve the speed and cost of breaking down old iPhones. The energy used will drop over time as improvements are made to the process.

Re: "Absolutely no one can make sense of the United States' infatuation with firearms."

There is no handgun in the world that will protect you from an armed government. This is a weapon used by thugs, and not dictators. The idea that somehow we are safer from our government because some idiot thinks that having a disguised 2 shot 38 special is a good idea, is so laughable it hurts!!!

The other wonderful idea is to allow everyone at the Republican Convention to carry firearms openly. I can only speculate that someone wanted to make killing Donald Trump a much easier thing for some nutcase to do. That would save the Republican old guard from having to pass over him, and unite their party for the election. Nothing else about this makes sense. Why would you bring guns to a political convention where tempers will run high and over 50,000 people will be in attendance? Odds that someone there is crazy with those number has to be over 100%.

Re: Given the cost of medical care in USA, perhaps google saved lives

Sorry but your comment is both naive and dangerously wrong. Google sold ads to companies that it knew were selling dangerous product. This is not something that saved people's lives. Unless you count selling water as anabolic steroid as saving lives. There was a good story on Wired about a crook who sold such products and how many companies he set up to catch Google and how deep it went into the Google system. It was all about selling clicks, not saving lives. Good try though it made is sound a little bit better to blame another government system instead of corporate greed. Which is really ironic when you realize that it is corporate greed that keeps America from having a single payer medical system.

Re: No Excuse

The only problem with copyright is the extrme greed and over reach created by the corporate lobbies from companies like Disney. The term of ownership is at least 10 fold too long. The gap between what is and what ought to be in the law always exists until it grows so egregious that the law simply fails to function. The owner has had his work stolen. 2 problems greatly reduce his chances of getting his legal rights protected. One is the ease of the theft. No law can function when enforcement is impossible. The second problem is with the underlying contract between the government and the creator of the work. The government and its citizens are supposed to be enriched with easy access to the copyrighted work after a reasonable period of time. 10 to 15 years is nearly forever in a digital society that creates a nearly exponential growth in media. 20 years was the original grant in the USA before Disney began lobbying for copyright extensions. In a just legal framework, our society should have access to all copyrights before 1994. If this fundamental inequity is not addressed copyrights will die.

Nothing could be a bigger disservice to our society then the current system. Lawlessness is enriching the thieves, and we are all being forced to pay for works that should be free. So the current situation leaves the law completely free of its most essential component: justice. Is it any surprise the Law is failing?

Re: "What is wrong with this picture"?

Apple's money is sitting in US Treasuries making about 1.5-2% per year. As of result of this Apple is very slowly losing it's money to the ultimate tax-- inflation. Apple has no interest in investing the money per se. The cash on hand sitting in their accounts works as a strategic reserve that allows them to purchase entire factories that are a critical part of their supply chain. Apple purchases the equipment necessary for making their devices and keeps the tax benefits of depreciation on their tax return. Apple also pays more in taxes in America as a percentage of sales then 99% of the population pays on their own income (I am not counting Social Security as a tax since there is a financial payback given after age 65). Many individuals have equal marginal tax rates, but very few pay more that 25% in effective tax rates. 26% is Apple's effective tax rate after all the management of taxation risks world wide.

Re: Surely PixelSense is prior art from 2001

Apple and Microsoft have cross licensed all patents after they settled a multi decade patent war in 1997. Microsoft has no reason to sue Apple.

The problem from the Publisher's point of view was Amazon was killing all the other bookstores. The end result was Amazon was amassing the power to demand any price they wanted for their services. The publisher's had every reason to do this because the current system was killing their real customers the book sellers. The best explanation that I have read of this said that the government is arguing the facts and Apple is arguing the law. Without monopolistic control over the market, according to the current case law there is no problem with the agency model. The problem for the government is those who had the monopolistic control have already pled guilty and are offering to testify against Apple. Apple did not do anything wrong because they did not have control over the market. Apple will lost the original case and win on an appeal because the current case law does not have an example of someone doing this. In the last case in this area ToysRUs conspired to force toy makers to only sell goods to them rather than to their much smaller competitors. ToysRUs had both control and a conspiracy. Apple did not have control so presumably they will be acquitted on appeal. This is why Steve Jobs was not concerned about admitting his negotiations for "Most favored nation status".

but where does the money come from?

My biggest problem with Google is that it doesn't charge anything upfront. It just takes your data and says oh that will do. If Google and Apple were people who would you trust? The one who told you where they are making their money and charged fully for what they sell or the one who says "Just take it for free, you can pay me back later with a favor...".

So no the question of who has the most income is not irrelevant. Will Linux be there when you need them? Maybe you feel that it is worth it to use Linux, and I would agree with you if it were a simple product and I really had someone who was responsible for what I was buying. If there is a professional vendor then I prefer to get what I pay for, not trust some one that "free" actually is free and not expensive later.

Re: You missed the point ...

I do not think that all software patents are simply a matter of making something move from one side of the screen to the other. It is the practical effort to make it work smoothly, with minimal wasted effort and frustration that makes it worth paying for. Sensing properly the pinch and zoom and then making it call the proper action is not something that anyone would waste time on if they couldn't make money on it. I want it to work right every time not just most of the time. If you don't believe this can be patented then no one will bother. We will all be living with partially functioning devices that kill productivity and creativity.

Re: Software Patents = Retardedness in the Extreme

Apple has tried to license all of Samsungs patents through litigation. That does not mean they agree with any use of those patents. The jury may have made mistakes. They were not wrong about the doctrine of exhaustion. Samsung does not get to double dip especially with Frand patents.

Re: The Usual Silliness

Read- Recycle uranium. It costs money but is much safer in the long run. If 99% of the most toxic longest lasting waste can be recycled then you have a much smaller waste storage problem. The remaining waste decays in 10,000 years. This is something no one has any problem designing storage for. It is the 100,000 plus years storage profile that is impossible to contain.